Singapore Zoo

The morning star rose before the sun on Thursday.

We visited the Zoo today, leaving Chinatown and Little India for tomorrow when the lunar new year is to be celebrated. I think that we will miss the fireworks and the party tomorrow evening (too late for the mini Eggums), but hopefully we will see some dragons in the streets:)

There's ALWAYS something inside those rolls.

An pan is filled with mashed red beans. Sweet...

Today, we saw monkeys, a tiger, an ice bear from the exotic North, and several other animals. I am not sure which animals were there, but I am sure that Emi can tell you.

Brown lemur.

Proboscis monkey.

?

Tapir.

False gavials.

White tiger.

Wallabys and kangaroos (which means "I don't understand" in an Aboriginal

language, as the answer to a Briton asking what those animals are called.

Cassowary.

Emu.

Ant :-)

Pygme hippo.

Chinese New Year decorations.

Elephants.

Ice bear.

Orang Utan.

Chimpanzees.

Otters.

Emi does what she can to find new friends wherever we go. She likes being in Singapore, but she also misses her friends back home. Several times, she has insisted that we should go to Oslo so that she can play with some friends. It helps talking and singing about her friends, and she is very happy whenever she finds someone to play with. She loves to visit the playgrounds and water parks that there are plenty of everywhere.

There are plenty of kids at the waterholes.

Fam is generally happy, and generous with her smiles. She loves playing with Emi, and laugh out loud whenever she sees her.

Just feed me, keep those diapers fresh,

let me get my beauty sleep and let me-

-eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee entertain you!

The housekeeper left us a symbolic CNY gift;

tangerines - it means good luck!

Happy Chinese New Year?

Happy new year! Year of the horse! Good fortune, lots of wealth and love to all! But this is not a one day event - it's not even "new year's eve" today. And I'm not one month late. We're talking about Chinese New Year (CNY).

As we got out of the Zoo, we decided to take a cab home. Well, not a regular cab, more like a van with 4 big, comfortable seats plus 3 for short people in the back (which we didn't make use of). The first guy wanted $60, then said $55 and while we considered the price and the first car took off, another driver approached us with a $35 offer. Sold!

It turned out we were lucky with the driver. He was very courteous (like almost everyone we've met) and talkative (unlike almost everyone we've met). He told us a lot of facts about Chinese New Year,  Singapore, and the islanders. Here's what I remember:

Fun facts!

Today (January 30) is not actually the first day of CNY. Tomorrow is. But today is the day for spending time with one's family. Tomorrow is the day for visiting parents, and the day after tomorrow is the day for inviting or visiting friends. Our driver recommended visiting Chinatown any of these days, and especially checking out the parades downtown. He said children would have fun, too!

He also told us a little bit about Singtel (I asked about some huge satellite dishes along the way), which is the national telecom company and happens to be the service provider of my prepaid mobile data plan. The other providers, M1 and Starhub, buy capacity from Singtel.

Singapore buys water from Malaysia, who supposedly has threatened to cut them off from time to time. This shouldn't be a huge problem anymore, since Singapore has Hydroflux - recycled water, desalination, and other methods of becoming self-sufficient.

Singapore has no nuclear power plants, but harnesses energy from the currents of the seawater flowing through the Singapore Strait. I don't think this is the city's only source of power, though.

According to our driver, the population of Singapore is about 6 million (Wikipedia says about a million less than that) and that about 70% of the population is Chinese. He also guessed that about half of the population where foreigners. He also said that Singapore needed more people, and that skilled immigrants where wanted. Look no further!

Furthermore, he told us that during CNY, a lot of stores would be closed. However, Mustafa would be open. 24/7/365! And they've got everything. For a minute, it sounded like he was paid by Mustafa the way he bragged about this place and the deals you could make there. Anyway, it's in Little India, which he also recommended going to. Especially to eat something on banana leaves at a restaurant named Apollo. No, I got that wrong. There's actually a restaurant named "The Banana Leaf Apolo!" And to see the distinct architecture and just enjoy a piece of India here in Singapore. Don't forget, though - this guy was Chinese!

Apropos ethnicity: The first language of Singapore is English. If kids flunk English, they're held back a year in school. The family language and street language depends on your race. If you're Chinese, you learn Mandarin in school, but speak your dialect, eg Hainanese. And if you're Malay, you speak Malay, while Indians speak Hindu and eventually some other Indian language. When folks of different backgrounds meet, they speak English. People from all races associate and our driver, who was about 40 years old, understood some Malay which he picked up from friends while growing up.

The last piece of useful advice this driver gave us was on general courtesy. He said they learned in school to treat each other and especially tourists with the utmost respect, because it is paramount that Singapore, having hardly any natural resoures, must to build and keep the best relations with the international community. Oh, and don't EVER place money on the table when paying or giving back change. Money should ALWAYS be handed over. Unless you've had a quarrel and want to demonstrate a point.

Which, during CNY, you really shouldn't. Everyone is supposed to be happy! That is something we learned from TV this morning, so the taxi fun facts are done. Thanks for reading :-)

Thanks

Thank you for following us! We're very happy to see that we've got readers from all around the world, and while Asia is best represented countrywise, it's no big surprise that most of our followers (judging by pageviews) are from home. Germany is a mystery to me, though.

Normalizing

Orchard Road and too much image editing. But oh, how much fun!

Finally, we're all aligning, getting into the groove, feeling more at ease. I wouldn't say we're settling, because we're going to be on the move for a lot longer, but hey, we've already been grocery shopping three times in Singapore! That must mean something.

Emi eats her bowl of cereal every morning, and every
other night. Served with a million Singapore $ smile!

2014 is the year of the horse. Not counting January. From January 31 (or 30, according to some sources) until February 2 (or even a week later), the Chinese Lunar New Year is celebrated. Sometimes when we've bought tickets, meals, or something else, we've also received a "free gift", which is normally a set of envelopes. I believe they are meant for money, i.e. gifts for family and friends during the new year celebration.

Horses everywhere

Guess what.

Yesterday, I went for a walk in the vicinity North of East Coast Road, in order to buy a kite at at Passion Kites (they ship worldwide). Ever since  I set foot in Singapore, I've been curious as to how clean the city would be. I guess I was slightly disappointed, because I've been extremely biased. Don't get me wrong, it's very tidy and basically spotless here, even in public restrooms, buses, side roads, and generally all over the place, but if you look for trash, you'll find it.

Little fat man

The most trashy place I've found so far.

Homeless people.

I'm sort of relieved to see Singapore pass this reality check. It's not squeaky clean. Not everyone is well off. On the other hand, most people seem to be extremely environmentally conscious, and at no point have I felt threatened, in danger in any way, or harassed by anyone. People in general are almost overwhelmingly helpful and show the utmost respect to their fellow men (and women and children), and people have come to our rescue even before we knew we needed their assistance a number of times and always give up their seats on public transport for parents with children. That is amazing!

Anyway, I did find the kite store. It was very small, but they did have a cool collection of kites! They were particularly proud of their American goods, such as the cow underneath:

Watch out for flying cows

Beaing a cheap, grumpy old tourist with a strict self-imposed baggage allowance, I went for a small 20 SGD "dragon" as we Norwegians call it.

Emi, her kite, and the writer of today's blog post

East Coast Park

We took the MRT (subway) to the southern tip of the city and the monorail over to the resort island Sentosa, where we visited a wet playground for short pirates. Emi had too much fun, and I got to swim in the muddy waters of the Singapore Strait. In return for her patience, Astrid gets to go to Chinatown on any given day - which might be tomorrow.

Having a thrill at the Port of Lost Wonders at Sentosa island

Uh, this is a bit unsettling. A bomb at the subway? Forget about "don't ask don't tell!"

Back to the everyday life. Every once in a while, instead of throwing our dirty underwear in the trash and buying new at the mall next door, we too do our white washing. The hotel charges a ridiculous amount for doing it for us (which is OK, since they also provide a self-service laundry room), so I've got the responsibility for changing money (each machine takes 7 x $1 coins), washing, and drying. Which means everything goes on the same program (colored). That's as easy as it can get!

Singapore

It's already been three days in Singapore. We needed some time to get settled, and traveling with children doesn't allow us to plan much more than one thing per day, let alone blogging. Anyway...

Our hotel: Grand Mercure Roxy Hotel. A 4-star alright place on the East side, maybe a bit further from the city centre than we could have wished for. Anders kind of wished we'd stayed at the Sands Marina Bay, but that would probably have hurt our budget more than it would have done us good!

There's a food court in the mall across from our hotel. Actually, there seems to be a food court at all malls! Still, this one is pretty good, and it's got "safe" food and "crazy" food. While Astrid generally likes to go for the safe stuff, Anders likes to have the possibility to try something crazy from time to time, although he regrets doing it almost every time. His sunday breakfast was chicken claws, a pork dumpling, and rice with something in it. Gluttonous rice, they called it. Emi's favorite dishes, apart from cereal with yoghurt, are eggs, rice, and toast. Fam is on a banana, apple and rice diet.

The hotel has a one-way shuttle bus to the city. During the weekend, it took us to Marina Bay, where you can find the Sands hotel (with a boat on top - imagine the view from the rooftop pool which you DO NOT have access to without being a guest), the world's largest ferris wheel, and a garden (we'll get back to that).

We left our push-chair in Thailand, since Fam would outgrow it soon. We've still got our stroller, and this carrier that lets us carry Emi on the back or Fam on the chest. Emi likes both options (stroller and carrier), so she dictates who gets to ride what.

While Astrid and Emi slept in, Fam and Anders went to the beach. Obviously, you can camp here with a tent! Who says Singapore lodging needs to be expensive?

Don't commit crime. If you do, you'll get smacked! And locked up. And probably thrown out.

Gardens by the Bay has a couple of greenhouses. I'd skip 'em if I were you and you weren't particularily interested in botantics.

Free of charge: A small water park for kids at the bay. We got Emi an oversized pair of shorts and a T-shirt, and she had an hour of fun.

Meat-eating plants.

More carnivore flora.

Actually, there was a whole bunch of meat-lovers at the top of the Cloud Forest.

Here's a vegetarian. 

One of thousands (millions?) of flowers in the Flower Dome.

Memories of Thailand

Emi and Dwang

Emi and Mook in her school uniform...

... and her red fleece jacket that we brought from Norway

Morning gymnastics at the Catholic school which Mook attends

Ban Jan

(The house of Jan and Dow)